Page:W. E. B. Du Bois - The Gift of Black Folk.pdf/282

270 grass. Many writers and artists have found hidden inspiration in their Negro blood and from the first importation in the fifteenth century down to today there has been a continual mingling of white and Negro blood in the United States both within and without the bonds of wedlock that neither law nor slavery nor cruel insult and contempt has been able to stop.

Besides these influences in economics and the home there has come the work of Negro women in revolt which cannot be forgotten. We mention two cases.

Harriet Tubman was a woman absolutely illiterate, who, from 1849 down to the Civil War, spent her time journeying backward and forward between the free and slave states and leading hundreds of black fugitives into freedom. Thousands of dollars were put upon her head as rewards for her capture; and she was continually sought by northern abolitionists and was a confidant of John Brown. During the War, she acted as a spy, guide and nurse and in all these days, worked without pay or reward. William H. Seward said: “A nobler, higher spirit or truer, seldom dwells in the human form,” and Wendell Phillips added: “In my opinion there are few captains, perhaps few colonels who have done more for the loyal cause since the War began and few men who did